Warning – contains spoilers.
It has been remarked, by Steven Moffat himself, that the opening episode to the new Dr Who would be a movie sized story. It was a tantalising promise from the new genius writer head honcho that left people like me a tad concerned: would his potential be fully realised? Strangely, my concern for him was almost paternal: I found myself sitting closer to the set as the show started secretly saying “Come on Steven, you’re a great writer and have a great show to improve, please don’t make a glaring error”. The problem is that with great genius comes great expectation. For me this expectation was exceeded.
Steven made good on his movie-like promise. The new camera format, camera movement, central location and art direction are welcome revamps to that make the new series look very cinematic. Story wise too, Mr Moffat employs cinema storytelling techniques to brilliant effect. As soon as we realise the new sidekick to be Amy Pond is an orphan, we’re already on her side. Having at least one missing parent is a technique many Hollywood films use – on hearing about it we subconsciously say “Ahh that’s so sad, you poor little thing” and begin to like them. Look at most Hollywood films and you’ll find at least one missing parent: “How to Train Your Dragon”, “Kick Ass”, “Clash of the Titans” and “Alice in Wonderland” are all recent examples. We like the characters more if they’re stoic about this fact, more if they’re funny because of it, or brave despite it, and the new ”Who” sidekick has all these facets, yet feels vibrant and original.
Structurally the plot opening has a similar pattern to Moffat’s famous “Girl in the Fireplace” episode: a portal through which the aliens are coming, the doctor meeting the a child, seeing she’s in danger, popping away for a few minutes only to return much later than he’d expected. This time though the Dramatic irony is much greater. With “Girl in the Fireplace” the action takes place in the alien world with the Doctor and we know their target hasn’t been locked onto yet. In the Eleventh Doctor though we’re just left with a sense of Dramatic irony and mystery: we know the alien prison escapee was in the house 12 years previously and are concerned as to what has been happening in the mean time.
First Mr Moffat makes us like the child then he leaves her in the house with the monster for 12 years, keeping us on tenterhooks as to what has been happening.
The main plot – finding and exposing the alien while the clock ticks down – is reminiscent of the “Smith and Jones” episode from season 3, where as the time counts down the doctor must reveal the alien hiding in a human body. But the eleventh doctor is certainly not cliché, if anything the opposite. Economical too. Even the way the Doctors choose his new wardrobe has been written in a refreshing way and tightly woven into the plot. Such is Moffat’s story telling prowess, that it makes you wonder what other seeds of story have been interwoven into this episode.
So much is set up with the first episode. Not just the wedding dress cliff-hanger shown at the end of the show. There are other smaller questions that leave us wanting to know more. We can’t help but wonder who the aunty is? Why Amy is an orphan? What’s going on in the post office? Will there be consequence to the Doctors clothes stealing? And above all why are there no ducks in the pond?
The only disappointment for me was that while the soundtrack to the show was improved, I found the music still to be too heavy handed. Such good story telling doesn’t need for example, laboured “light hearted music” to tell us when something is funny. Apart from this, and the opening title sequence, this new episode has succeeded in raising expectations once more. I look forward to them being exceeded again.
